Computer basics
This path is for someone nobody has ever quite told what a computer is, and for someone who wants to teach exactly that to a parent. You need to know nothing in advance, and every new word is explained where it first appears.
- 12 lessons
- Free, no signup
The computer basics path, five stations
-
1
Recognising the machine
What a computer is, how many kinds there are, and why your phone is one of them.
-
2
Inside the box
What each part does, and the role the operating system plays between them.
-
3
The everyday work with files
Files, folders and extensions, document formats, and compression when something is large.
-
4
Keeping what you have
Installing software safely, cloud storage, and a backup you can actually restore.
-
5
One step further
Running AI on your own machine, and troubleshooting when something stops working.
The stations have an order but no timetable. Anyone who practices on their own machine moves faster, and anyone who only reads moves slower.
The path, step by step
Lessons are ordered so each stands on the previous one. You can also jump in anywhere.
- 1What a computer actually isA computer is a machine that takes something from you, works on it, and hands the result back. That one sentence is true of a laptop, true of a phone, and true of the machine that just sent you this page.Beginner
- 2The types of computersComputers are sorted not by size or price but by the job they were built for: one for a single person, one for anybody who comes asking, and one that repeats a single task for the rest of its life. You already know the first two, and the third is the category most of the computers around you fall into.Beginner
- 3Computer hardwareA computer is a handful of parts with one job each: the processor calculates, memory holds what is needed right now, and storage holds what has to survive. Everything else either connects those three or supplies their power and cooling.Beginner
- 4What is an operating systemAn operating system is the software that stands between the hardware and every other program: it decides which program gets the processor and when, where files are written, and who is allowed to touch what. Without it every program would have to talk to every component directly, and no two programs could share one machine.Beginner
- 5Files, folders and file extensionsA file is a run of bytes with a name, and a folder is nothing more than a list of names. A file extension, the letters after the last dot, has no bearing on what is actually inside the file: it only tells the operating system which program to open it with.Beginner
- 6Document formats: PDF, Word and plain textA document format decides how your file opens on the other person machine: Word for a document that is meant to be edited, PDF for one that must look exactly the way you sent it, and plain text for one where only the words matter. The wrong choice rarely shows up on your own computer; it shows up on theirs.Beginner
- 7What file compression isCompression means writing the same information with fewer bytes. It comes in two families: lossless, like ZIP and RAR, which gives the original file back byte for byte, and lossy, which is what happens to images, audio and video, and which throws part of the detail away forever to get much smaller.Beginner
The order of these lessons comes from somewhere simple. First you need to know what you are dealing with, then what goes on inside it, then the everyday work, and last what to do when something breaks. Someone who knows where a file is stored does not lose their files. That sentence looks obvious, and most of the trouble people have with computers starts exactly there.
Most computer basics courses open with Word and Excel. We think that order is wrong. Someone who does not know where their file went gets lost in Word too, and someone who does know teaches themselves Word in an afternoon. So we start with the machine itself, and office software is simply not the subject of this path.
One thing worth saying up front: this path will not make you a repair technician. After reading it you can choose a laptop yourself, understand what the salesperson is telling you, take a backup and solve a simple problem on your own. Where the job reaches opening the case or replacing a part, go to someone who does that every day.
Real follow-up questions
Do I need to take a class to learn computers?
If your goal is a certificate, yes, because a certificate has to be issued by someone. If your goal is using the thing, no. The hardest part of learning computers is picking up the machine yourself and breaking something recoverable, and that does not happen in a classroom.
Where do I even start?
With the first lesson on this page. After that, instead of moving to the next one, spend an hour poking at your own machine and finding the things you just read about. We set the order of the lessons, but your own machine sets the pace.
Is this path different from a certificate course like ICDL?
Yes, and they are not after the same thing. There you mostly practice working with office software and end up with a certificate. Here there is no certificate, and the subject is the machine itself: what goes on inside it and why what you did produced that result.
This path sells nothing, and we do not run computer classes either. The single place these basics touch our own work is the server, meaning the computer that never switches off and that a site sits on; see the hosting page